With the ACC tournament just more than a month away, the Blue Devils will pack their bags and head to the tournament site seeking their first conference win of the season.
Duke will make the trek to Charlottesville, Va., Friday for a matchup against No. 19 Virginia at Memorial Gym beginning at 7 p.m. The dual was originally scheduled for Jan. 22, but inclement weather forced the teams to reschedule, leaving the Blue Devils working on short rest after dropping a tight 19-18 dual at home against Gardner-Webb Wednesday night.
“Those guys are not going to feel sorry for us [after Wednesday’s loss],” Duke head coach Glen Lanham said. “They want to shut us out. Obviously, we’ve got to lick our wounds and come back and wrestle hard…. We’re going to go light [Thursday] and then we’re going to go down to UVA and we’re going to beat them.”
On paper, Virginia (5-4, 0-2 in the ACC) is a tough out for a visiting Duke squad, much less a Blue Devil lineup grappling on short rest. At the Southern Scuffle, the Cavaliers finished 11th with 53.5 team points, 10 more points than the Blue Devils in 12th place. Virginia has also toppled two ranked opponents—a feat Duke (4-6, 0-2) has yet to achieve—dispatching then-No. 25 North Dakota State in its first dual of the season before taking down then-No. 16 Old Dominion at home.
But despite the record and résumé, the Cavaliers may find matchup problems against the Blue Devils. In its two conferences losses this season—a 35-7 loss at No. 3 N.C. State and a 31-7 loss at home against No. 10 Virginia Tech in its last outing—Virginia failed to score points in any match outside of the two featuring its two ranked grapplers, No. 6 George DiCamillo at 133 pounds and No. 10 Zach Nye at 197 pounds.
Although Duke did not fair any better against the Wolfpack at home in a 34-9 blowout, favorable matchups down the lineup may be just what the doctor ordered to handle the Cavaliers’ best weapons.
“I think that we’re in a lot of ways turning a corner,” redshirt senior Conner Hartmann said. “There’s some guys who have really started to push through blocks that they had earlier in the season and there’s a couple of guys who can really easily make a quick switch and they’re going to be able to just get a little more aggressive. That’s going to push them through to win some of these matches on Friday.”
No. 5 Hartmann enters the fray at 197 pounds against Nye having ended his last five matches with a pin or injury default. Of those five, four ended in the first period—including the quickest fall of Hartmann's career in 22 seconds at Cal Poly. Nye is one of Virginia's strongest grapplers, but Hartmann may be able to neutralize a scoring opportunity in the back of the lineup to steal valuable points on the road.
The two top-10 wrestlers faced off at the Southern Scuffle, with Hartmann emerging victorious by way of a 5-0 decision. The Port Orchard, Wash., native has proven nearly unstoppable in his final campaign, recording a 5-1 ledger against ranked opponents and scoring bonus points in eight of his 10 victories as a part of his perfect dual record.
“If I wrestle the same guy that I plan on wrestling Friday, I’ve wrestled him at least half a dozen times by now. I know what’s coming and I’m just going to go out there and wrestle hard,” Hartmann said. “[Nye]’s tough, he’s scrambly, he’s a squirrely guy, but as long as I wrestle the way that I usually do, then I feel comfortable.”
DiCamillo may pose a matchup problem of his own at 133 pounds for the Blue Devils, but the continued rise of No. 10 Mitch Finesilver at 149 pounds could provide bonus point opportunities for the visitors against unranked competition.
Finesilver is undefeated in dual competition this season with a 10-0 ledger, and has not lost since Jan. 2, an 8-6 decision against Central Michigan’s Justin Oliver on the second day of the Southern Scuffle. Since then, Finesilver has rattled off 10 consecutive victories that have catapulted him up the rankings.
“I can definitely tell guys are wrestling me a little bit differently [on my winning streak], but for me it’s just going out there and wrestling hard every time, keep building on what I’ve done,” Finesilver said. “The guys have helped me just to keep getting better every day, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”
With Hartmann and Finesilver at the helm, Duke will battle for a conference victory that will be hard to come by in the coming weeks. Friday’s matchup marks the first of the Blue Devils’ final three conference bouts, each against ranked opponents—including next week’s road dual at Tobacco Road-rival No. 15 North Carolina.
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